The Rape of White Male Privilege @ Penn State University

p nbsp;/p p My mama used to say, ldquo;Its different back East, thatrsquo;s why I came to California, I was seen as poor,span style=""nbsp; /spanblack, and unprotected,rdquo; she would go onto explain that race and class divisions were brutal and overt especially if you were a child without ldquo;peoplerdquo;, a mama, a family or folks watching over, you were viewed as easy prey. Throughout my life growing up I heard snatches of horror stories of sexual predation, abuse and racism that my mama had experienced as a poor mixed race orphan in one of over 22 foster homes and orphanages across the state of Pennsylvania.span style=""nbsp; /spanMy poor mamarsquo;s indelible scars ripped apart again in my mind as I heard about the sexual predation against 8 boys perpetrated by Penn State Footballrsquo;s former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and his many accomplices./p p class="MsoNormal" span style=""nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal" My poor mama was the ldquo;bastardrdquo; child of an indigenous African/span data-scayt_word="Puerta" data-scaytid="1"Puerta/span Rican factory worker and a Roma/Irish teenage mother, both were immigrants without ldquo;papersrdquo; In fact her mama, an abused woman on the run from a severely abusive marriage and three children, had tried to ldquo;sellrdquo; my mama in the Philadelphia Inquirer to the highest bidder, until she gave up and gave my mama up to the state as a ward of the court. ldquo;I wasnrsquo;t supposed to be born, I was a serious mistake,rdquo; my mama used to say, her blank eyes revealing a deep broken place that is permanently lodged inside my heart./p p class="MsoNormal" nbsp;/p p class="MsoNormal" My mamarsquo;s brown body was sexually violated over 200 times by the time she was 2 years old. I know the details of the whole horrible story, because after my mama passed, I found her psychiatric evaluation and medical report from the state of Pennsylvania stuffed in between all of her many lost papers and scattered belongings. My mama never healed from the predation, like I know most child sexual abuse victims never do. Her scars NEVER healed and remained in her heart and mind informing all of her and our trauma-filled life.span style=""nbsp; /spanIt was why she became sick and eventually disabled. It was why she was terrified of being alone. And in the end it was why we became span data-scayt_word="houseless" data-scaytid="2"houseless/span and forever unable to rise up from deep, unending poverty. It is why she protected me as fiercely as a lioness with he cub, no matter how crazy things got./p p class="MsoNormal" nbsp;/p p class="MsoNormal" As I read the dispatches from the corporate media, I scream for the 9 and ten year old boys who were raped by this man. I am unable to sleep in empathy with their unending pain and un-protected bodies. It is not clear from the grand jury report if the victims of Jerry Sandusky were black or brown, but they were most definitely ldquo;poorrdquo; or as the coded words describe, ldquo;underprivilegedrdquo; aka vulnerable./p p class="MsoNormal" nbsp;/p p class="MsoNormal" This real life horror story is about so many things, but the first and most pronounced is white male privilege and white supremacy. The way in which white men operate with impunity, violence and arrogance in so many worlds. From the sports industry, US Un-justice system, span data-scayt_word="akkkademia" data-scaytid="3"akkkademia/span, business and philanthropy. In this case that meant the benevolent head coach, elder Joe span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="4"Paterno/span was able to kick down an access crumb to, Mike span data-scayt_word="Mcquery" data-scaytid="8"Mcquery/span, who was a direct witness to the rape of a child by an adult male, Jerry Sandusky, and how that access crumb, was enough to silence the issue forever. How the president of the school reported nothing after being reported to by span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="5"Paterno/span, except to take span data-scayt_word="Sanduskys" data-scaytid="9"Sanduskys/span keys to the locker room away from him, so he would have to rape the children elsewhere. How his wife and his ldquo;non-profit organizationrdquo; were complicit, covering for him, ldquo;looking the other wayrdquo; when he would bring children into their own home to rape, because they were benefiting from his pimping. How it ended up with a slap on the wrist to Sandusky, because the judge. like almost everyone else in that town, owes span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="6"Paterno/span or Sandusky a favor. In contrast,span style=""nbsp; /spanBay Arearsquo;s own Fly span data-scayt_word="Benzo" data-scaytid="10"Benzo/span who did nothing to anyone except be African Descendent and young and have a powerful voice received the same amount of bail ($95,000.00) as Sandusky and was held in jail for over a week, while Sandusky, a brutal rapist of children sat in a bar having a drink, five hours after being charged. And finally, why when span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="7"Paterno/span was fired by the board of trustees, hundreds of white college students rioted, set fires and smashed windows and not one arrest was made, while thousands of people are arrested in the US for the sole act of sleeping on the streets because they are poor and have no home./p p class="MsoNormal" span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"According to a story, a href="http://sfbayview.com/2011/are-poor-black-boys-easy-targets-for-sexual-predators/"Are poor, black boys easy targets for sexual predators?/a by Edward span data-scayt_word="Wyceff" data-scaytid="11"Wyceff/span Williams which appeared in the Bay View Newspaper, this kind of predation occurs in several organized sports industries. From basketball teams to baseball, any of the places and spaces where our children are blindly being sent by trusting parents, with no expectation of these kinds of acts of brutality on our babies./span/p p class="MsoNormal" It came out later that there is no mandated reporter status in place in Pennsylvania like they have in California, a law which is also highly problematic and enables all kinds of abuse, but at least mandates that anyone in the care of children must report abuse of children whether they want to or not rather than go to papa span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="12"Paterno/span and ldquo;confessrdquo; and then get a promotion to shut up like span data-scayt_word="Mcquery" data-scaytid="13"Mcquery/span did./p p class="MsoNormal" I believe it is truly impossible to get any kind of fair trial in span data-scayt_word="“Paterno-town”" data-scaytid="15"ldquo;Paterno-townrdquo;/span and I hope that the FBI launches a true investigation into the corruption and trafficking that was openly happening in that town, which was so large that the Sandusky/span data-scayt_word="Paterno" data-scaytid="14"Paterno/span mafia assassinated the district attorney, Ray span data-scayt_word="Gricar" data-scaytid="16"Gricar/span, who was investigating the case./p p class="MsoNormal" span style=""nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal" But in the end these boys could be raped and violated like this because of the lie of the benevolent white male philanthropist (or what I call span data-scayt_word="“philanthro-pimp”" data-scaytid="17"ldquo;philanthro-pimprdquo;/span), only there to do ldquo;goodrdquo; like the priests, span data-scayt_word="slaveholders" data-scaytid="18"slaveholders/span and colonizers before them, using that blind trust to wage brutal war on the bodies of poor peoples, poor children, and children of color, because they could, and because of who they are, no-one was watching. Or, like my mama, because they are poor, no-one was caring.span style=""nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; /span/p